


Far Too Many Notes

by KChan88



Series: She Was Bound to Love You [3]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Bisexual!Christine, F/F, Girl!Raoul, Lesbian!Raoul, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22767325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChan88/pseuds/KChan88
Summary: What if Raoul de Chagny was a woman?A series featuring the major events (and a few things in-between) from the Phantom of the Opera, with a gender-bent, lesbian Raoul (and a bisexual Christine). ALW based, with Leroux elements.Scene 3: Raoul gets a threatening note, and starts investigating the strange goings on at the opera house, worried for Christine's welfare. While the managers are busy not listening, she finds a new friend in Meg Giry.
Relationships: Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Series: She Was Bound to Love You [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627735
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	Far Too Many Notes

"Raoul!"

Raoul jolts awake, tossing her covers off at the sound of a voice and a knock on her door. She doesn't feel like she's been asleep for very long.

Who's calling her name? What time is it? She glances out the window through bleary eyes, the light low in the sky. Early, still, then. She seizes her pocket-watch off the bedside table, checking the time.

Seven in the morning. Just after.

That must be Philippe calling her.

"Raoul wake _up_!” Philippe knocks on the door more urgently this time. “There's a note addressed to you with a seal shaped like a skull, I need you to explain to me why, please!"

Raoul all but falls out of her bed, tossing her dark blue dressing gown over her nightdress, her hair still loose and out of sorts when she opens the door.

"What's happening?" she asks, met with her brother's irritated face.

Philippe pushes the unopened letter toward her, and Raoul does see the red wax seal in the shape of a skull.

She can't say she likes the aesthetic choice, herself.

She goes back into her room with Philippe at her heels, yanking open her bedside drawer without grace and pulling out a letter opener.

"Please tell me this isn't from the husband of Juliette’s friend you were involved with." Philippe sounds grouchy, like he hasn't had enough coffee yet. Or perhaps any.

Raoul slides the letter opener under the seal without looking at her brother, though it takes a couple of tries before anything gives. "Why on earth would it be, Philippe? I don't dally with married women. I won't be anyone's excuse for infidelity, no matter how common it may be among young men of our class. I…” her face warms, because she doesn’t really want to talk about this with her brother, even if they share most things between them. “Celine’s the only woman I’ve truly _dallied_ with, I’m not running around Paris seducing other women at random, you know.”

The relationship with Celine is the only one of consequence Raoul’s had, which ended four months ago when Celine married. She’s only stolen a few kisses otherwise, but the trouble is one of those kisses was a rather rash choice at a party when she was eighteen, and someone saw. Someone saw and told, and then all the speculations about Raoul—her clothes, her strangeness, her apparent disinterest in talking to young men— turned into real evidence.

She doesn’t regret the nine-month relationship with Celine, she’s glad it happened, but she’s not sure she was in love, entirely. Maybe a touch. Maybe more, if things hadn’t ended, but she always felt she was looking for something long-term, while Celine was not, in the end. An opportunity for marriage came around, and Raoul can’t blame her for taking it, not when things are the way they are, for women.

But then, perhaps part of Raoul’s heart has always been Christine’s. Silly, perhaps, given she was just fifteen when she saw her friend last, but the feeling rings true.

Of the two of them _Philippe_ is the one who’s had multiple mistresses without every marrying, but they all seem to part on good terms, so Raoul doesn’t judge her brother for it, not when it’s so terribly common in Paris, but moving from one entanglement to another isn’t something she wants.

Philippe backs off at that. "I know, I'm sorry. I was just startled. You were upset last night and then this, it's a bit much for early morning."

"I was upset because I heard a strange man in Christine's dressing room and then she was suddenly gone and the door locked. I barely slept."

Philippe hesitates, which makes Raoul stop in her tracks. Philippe rarely hesitates when he has an opinion on something.

"Raoul have you..." Philippe bites his lip, an odd thing for him, a trait of the father who died when Raoul was twelve, and not Philippe himself. "Have you thought perhaps that you heard a man's voice in Christine's dressing room because she..."

Raoul breathes in deeply through her nose. "Because she what?"

"Might have a suitor?" Philippe's voice goes up on the question.

"I..." Raoul stammers, emotions rising to the surface that she isn't awake enough for. "Yes, obviously I've thought about it. But there was something strange. Something dangerous. I don't have proof yet as to why but I...I just feel like that's the truth. And now this note.”

"All right." Philippe softens, putting a hand on Raoul's shoulder. "I just don't want a chorus girl tossing my sister's heart about."

Raoul wants to snap she's not just a chorus girl, but she can't, in the face of Philippe's kindness. She’s not sure why Philippe romancing the prima ballerina is so terribly different, but she supposes her brother must think it is. Sorelli has money and fame, in the end, and Christine does not. Well, she might have fame, at least a little now, but newly. Perhaps it’s because he knows that Raoul is after a sort of marriage—a long-term commitment—and he isn’t, so even if Raoul can’t marry in the eyes of the law, it’s the same thing to him.

"She doesn't know I feel anything romantic toward her," she says instead. "And I don't even...well I need to sort my own head out, but this letter is...strange."

"It does go along with your something dangerous theory." Philippe raises his eyebrows at the broken seal, which bleeds a little red down onto the envelope. "What a strange person, to send a letter like that. What does it say?"

Raoul holds out the letter, both of them reading it over together.

_Do not fear for Miss Daaé_   
_The Angel of Music has her under his wing_   
_Make no attempt to see her again._

"Well." Philippe clears his throat. "That certainly is...a threatening reassurance. Whoever this is certainly sees you as a threat, Raoul. Whatever they think the threat might be."

Raoul reads the note once more, still not feeling terribly awake, but determined, all the same.

"I have to go to the opera house."

"Raoul. At least have some coffee first. Please."

Raoul keeps looking at the letter, a deep sense of darkness in the pit of her stomach, heavy with foreboding. When Christine mentioned the Angel of Music last night, Raoul assumed she meant it metaphorically. And now this? A note from someone called the Angel of Music?

What is going on?

“Send Madeline in, if you would? I need to get dressed.”

Philippe goes with another sigh and a press to Raoul’s shoulder. Their sister Juliette will be coming in from the countryside in two weeks, and Raoul sincerely hopes Philippe will keep the skull note to himself, because she doesn’t want her worrying over it. Juliette is Raoul’s favorite sister, less inclined to nag her about marriage than Eloise— _you don’t have to love him Raoul, you just need to like him fine_ , she once said, as if that were reasonable. It’s silly, besides, given that both of her sisters have two children, and so there’s no need, really, for Raoul to add to the lot, other than societal expectation. Eloise also pulls out the infamous, _Maman would want you to marry_ when she’s being particularly unkind, which is unfair given that Raoul never knew her mother, as she died in childbirth. That proclamation usually makes Raoul shut the door in her sister’s face. She also suspects she makes a better aunt than a mother, but then perhaps one day she might find an unfortunate child and give them a home. She certainly has enough money. Philippe isn’t married and Eloise doesn’t nag him, despite the fact that he’s the oldest and the only brother.

Madeline comes in, helping her dress and tutting over the toppling pile of books on Raoul’s night-stand—Dumas, Hugo, Flaubert, all half read—and nearly tripping over Raoul’s violin case. Madeline is about ten years older than Raoul, but determined to mother her, even still.

“You are so smart but somehow still half a disaster,” Madeline mutters fondly. “Thank God you’re hopelessly pretty. Let me do your hair properly at least, please? I can’t believe you went out of this house with a braid last evening, to the opera. People will think I’m a failed ladies’ maid. Don’t you care about my reputation?”

Raoul softens at that, relenting. “All right, all right, but just a simple chignon, and don’t put it up so high, I know that’s the fashion and I don’t like it.”

Madeline sighs, long-suffering as Philippe, and does a loose chignon at the back of Raoul’s neck, sweeping her hair away from her face.

Raoul gives her a grateful peck on the cheek, before dashing downstairs with the strange note in hand. She swipes the cup of coffee Philippe’s already poured for her off the dining room table, half of it going down in a gulp or two. It’s just on the edge of too hot to drink, and it burns the tip of her tongue.

“Raoul,” Philippe chides. “Sit, eat something. You barely ate supper last night.”

“I have to go!” Raoul exclaims, taking Philippe’s free hand that isn’t holding a newspaper and grasping it tight. “I need to see about Christine and the opera generally. I’ll be back this afternoon!”

“Take the carriage!” Philippe calls out after her.

Raoul throws her free hand up in the air, swallowing down coffee before putting the china cup down on a table by the front door and feeling slightly bad about the clattering sound it makes. “I’ll walk!”

Walking, as it turns out, makes Raoul windswept by the time she reaches the opera, which is a mile or so from the de Chagny residence in Paris. She tucks a few loose strands that have fallen out of her chignon behind her ears, smoothing out the collar of her hunter green coat, which matches her skirt. The opera looks grand and inviting in the bright sunlight on this cloudless day, making the green roof pop against the white stone, all the sculptures on the outside looking a little more alive. Raoul spots a line of young men by one of the side doors, each of them with a flower in their hand, and hears some of them saying the name Daae.

She smirks, just a little, because she has the privilege of knowing Christine already, but she can certainly appreciate their efforts and their taste.

 _You aren’t a young man, Raoul_ , a voice reminds her. _She’s probably not looking at you, like that._

She shakes off the voice because that’s not what’s important today, even if she feels herself falling more desperately in love with every passing second since she saw Christine again last night. What’s important is getting to the bottom of this strange note, and making sure Christine is all right.

She takes a deep breath, straightens her shoulders, and steps inside the opera house.

She finds the managers immediately, both of them shouting at each other in a way that isn’t shouting exactly, though Firmin seems drunk already, and it’s not quite ten in the morning.

“Messieurs,” she says, stepping forward and meeting them halfway up the grand staircase. “I received a note this morning that I deeply hope is not from you.”

“Mademoiselle de Chagny!” Andre exclaims. “Good, you’re here. We are practically drowning in notes, ourselves and were going to send for you.”

Raoul holds out the note to Andre. “Did you write this? Either of you? I require an answer, if you please.”

“What is it we’re meant to have written?” Firmin asks, his eyes furrowed in bewilderment, holding a newspaper in one hand and what looks like a note in the other.

They probably didn’t write it, and it wasn’t Raoul’s first guess, but she doesn’t have a culprit in mind, so it can’t hurt to check anyone off the list.

Andre takes Raoul’s note, reading it aloud for the benefit of them all, though Raoul already has it memorized.

“Do not fear for miss Daae, the angel of music has her under his wing, make no attempt to see her again.” Andre’s eye go wide. “Well, that’s surely…interesting. But we didn’t write this.”

“Well do you know where she is?” Raoul presses. “Has she returned from...wherever she’s been? It sounds like someone took her somewhere.”

“We’ve no idea,” Andre says. “I assure you we had nothing to do with it. We wouldn’t want to be losing more of our cast, after all.”

“So you do know Madmoiselle Daae,” Firmin adds, looking over at Andre. “We were saying you seemed very pleased to see her last evening.”

Firmin says that not with malice, but with the air of someone who might have heard the rumors about Raoul around Paris. Even if people find Raoul’s manners charming and kind, they still talk about the strangeness of the youngest de Chagny sibling. The managers likely don’t care because they’re happy enough to have the de Chagny money, and don’t know for sure, besides. Raoul’s not ashamed of who she is, but it isn’t simple, either. It might not be penalized under the law—not since the revolution—but it surely isn’t accepted widely, either, to say the very least. Perhaps an opera house full of artists might be more so, but there are risks aplenty, so she’d rather not discuss it with people she doesn’t absolutely trust.

“I do.” Raoul smiles. “She’s an old childhood friend, her father taught me to play the violin. But now to the note. If you didn’t write it, who did?”

Before either manager can answer, a high, shrill voice pierces the air.

“Where is she?”

Raoul spins around, seeing the woman who must be La Carlotta, all red hair and bright colors, striding right for her.

“Ah welcome back!” Andre exclaims, relieved to see one of his cast members, though Raoul doesn’t like the excitement in his voice.

She wants Christine’s to have another night on that stage. For Gustave Daae’s memory. For Christine herself. Raoul won’t soon forget that triumph in Christine’s face, that heart-melting smile. That smile alone was enough to make Raoul forget any precaution, to forget she couldn’t just shout out loud, I’m in love with Christine Daae!

“Your precious patron is here, I see!” Carlotta exclaims, stopping just in front of Raoul with a stout, friendly looking man beside her.

“Madame?” Raoul asks. “I don’t…believe we’ve met, officially. I’ve heard of your career, obviously.”

“Did you send this?” Carlotta asks, shoving a note under Raoul’s nose. “A new patron who I’ve heard knows Christine? Perhaps you’re behind it.”

Raoul takes the note, irritation spiking in her chest. “I did not write any such thing. I came here looking for the author of a note I received myself.”

Carlotta raises her eyebrows, and with everyone staring at her, Raoul reads the note aloud.

_Your days at the Opéra Populaire are numbered_   
_Christine Daaé will be singing on your behalf tonight_   
_Be prepared for a great misfortune_   
_Should you attempt to take her place_

Despite her manners, Raoul can’t blame Carlotta for being upset.

That’s a threat, no questions asked.

“You’re Christine’s…friend.” Carlotta lands on the word awkwardly, like she isn’t sure if she’s right or not, but a catty implication hangs in the air, and Raoul blushes. She hasn’t even said a word to Christine about anything beyond friendship, yet all of these people seem to think they know her feelings. How many people saw her go into that dressing room with a rose, and why does that even tell an entire story? “Perhaps you’re in league with whoever is sending these notes, trying to get me replaced with her.”

“I assure you,” Raoul says with real sincerity, even if she can’t keep all the annoyance out of her voice. “I did not send this. Christine is an old friend and I admire her talent greatly. But I had nothing to do with this, nor any grudge against you, signora. I certainly have no desire to threaten you in such a way. I’m sorry it’s happening to you.”

Carlotta seems disarmed by this, opening her mouth and closing it again in confusion, peering at Raoul for a long, drawn-out moment like she can’t make sense of her.

Raoul’s stomach sinks. Something is _wrong_ , and she doesn’t know where Christine is and…

There’s another voice, and Raoul’s head hurts, until she hears four wonderful words.

“Miss Daae has returned.”

Raoul turns, and Madame Giry the ballet mistress to whom she gave the note last night is standing there, still dressed in all black and looking rather severe.

Firmin spins around on his heel, the sound echoing in the cavernous, marbled entrance. “I trust her midnight oil is well and truly burned, then.”

Raoul furrows her eyebrows. She doesn’t like that one bit.

“Where is she?” Andre asks, with a bit more kindness.

“Resting,” Madame Giry says, cloaking her words in an infuriating mystery. “She was greatly in need.”

“May I see her?” Raoul asks, catching the eye of the young woman next to the ballet mistress, who she doesn’t know.

Madame Giry swipes her hand through the air. “No, Madmoiselle de Chagny, she will see no one.”

“Is she going to sing?” Carlotta exclaims, her voice going, if possible, higher than before. There’s an odd desperation in it Raoul didn’t catch earlier.

“I have a note.”

Andre sighs. “Don’t we all?”

Madame Giry takes this as permission to go on, and reads the note aloud.

_Christine Daaé has returned to you_   
_And I am anxious her career should progress_   
_In the new production of Il Muto_   
_You will therefore cast Carlotta as the pageboy_   
_And put Miss Daaé in the role of Countess_   
_The role which Miss Daaé plays_   
_Calls for charm and appeal_   
_The role of the pageboy is silent which makes_   
_My casting, in a word, ideal_

_I shall watch the performance from my normal seat in box 5, which will be kept empty for me. Should these commands be ignored, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur_

_"...I remain, gentlemen, your obedient servant_   
_O.G."_

The original author of the note isn’t here, but Madame Giry’s words sound like someone else’s, and despite the sun pouring in through the windows, Raoul feels like someone might have snuffed out every candle, plunging them all into darkness with a quick blow of air. Something somewhere creaks in the quiet after the ballet mistress finishes reading, and Raoul starts in surprise, goosebumps racing up her arms.

After that, the room bursts into chaos, everyone shouting at everyone else, and all Raoul can think is _who in the world is O.G.?_

“You sent this!” Carlotta shouts again, pointing one finger at Raoul. “You’re this O.G.!”

“Indeed,” Raoul says, sarcasm flooding into her voice even if she knows she shouldn’t allow that. Were she a different sort of aristocrat, she might say something like _I will take my money and leave if I’m to be treated this way_ , but she isn’t, so she doesn’t.

There’s more shouting. Carlotta says something about leaving again. Andre says you are our star. Firmin says Miss Daae will be playing the page boy, you will be playing the countess, and then both managers are off, fawning over Carlotta despite the fact that Christine gave an incredible performance last evening and there’s a line of people out the door waiting to see her. But now there’s trouble, Christine is trouble, and it seems vastly unfair. Raoul should follow them, she knows it, but right now, all she can think about is Christine, and whether or not she’s all right.

Something seems very, _very_ wrong.

Raoul notices the ballerina waiting for her, recognizing her from last night's opera now, though they haven’t met. She's a pretty girl, perhaps two years younger than Raoul's twenty-one. She waits for Madame Giry—her mother?—to go off behind the managers before beckoning Raoul over with one finger.

"Madmoiselle de Chagny." The girl curtsies, and even in those movements it's clear she's a dancer. "I'm Meg Giry, a good friend of Christine's. I saw you at the performance last night, but haven’t had the chance to introduce myself.”

Raoul smiles, waving away the curtsy. "Please, call me Raoul, if I may call you Meg?"

Meg brightens. "Of course! I..." she leans in closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. "I can tell you're worried about Christine, and she's told me lovely stories about you and her father when you were younger. Mama said she needed to rest, but I think it might do her well to see you. I can barely get her to talk to me."

"What happened?" Raoul asks. "Do you know? This is all terribly strange.”

"I..." Meg hesitates, her words just for the two of them now, another secret of the thousands this opera house seems to contain. "I think she was kidnapped by the Phantom, last night. But she won't say so."

"The...Phantom?" Raoul asks, thinking of Christine's words about the Angel of Music. "I…I did hear a man’s voice in Christine’s dressing room last night, when I went back to pick her up for dinner, and the door was locked.”

Meg nods solemnly, leading Raoul forward out of the entrance and through the twisting, turning hallways of the opera house. “We call him the Opera Ghost, too. It’s why the notes are signed O.G. I think the Phantom is Christine’s tutor. And she was telling me last night, about her father and the Angel of Music but I…he’s no angel, I think. I’m worried for her.”

_Opera Ghost?_

“Do we know anything about this…opera ghost?” Raoul asks as they walk.

“No one knows his name, and until recently I truly did think him a ghost,” Meg tells him in a conspiratorial whisper. “But things have been happening. Falling set pieces. Shadows. For three years, which is why I don’t understand why Carlotta was thinking it might be you, though I suppose it is the first time anyone’s gotten notes like this. Everyone knows about him. He dropped something on Carlotta during rehearsal and that’s why she left. The old manager paid him a salary. 20,000 francs a month.”

“I…” Raoul stumbles over the words, trying to make sense of paying someone who might have been a ghost that sum of money every month, and if not a ghost, someone torturing the entire opera house. She and Philippe certainly didn’t hear that when they signed the paperwork for this patronage. “That’s…quite a tale, Meg. Thank you for trusting me.”

Meg smiles in an easy, friendly way. “I’m glad you’re here madmoi…Raoul.”

Raoul smiles too, despite the swirling anxiety in her stomach. “I am, too.”

They walk for a short while, but when Meg knocks on the door to what might be Madame Giry’s own quarters, Raoul isn’t ready for the sight that greets her. Christine doesn’t look...like Christine. She looks drawn, the light gone from her eyes and her limbs curled in tight, her knees pressed to her chest. Christine looks up at the sound of the door opening, tears streaming down her face, her voice going high and cracking in half.

“ _Raoul_?”

**Author's Note:**

> I know, this was a mean ending! But don't worry, the next part will involve an interlude featuring Raoul and Christine directly after this scene.


End file.
